Abstract
It is conceivable that capitalism and the new market economy as it currently operates is unsustainable despite the bullish opinions of businessmen and entrepreneurs. There are many obvious concerns surrounding an economy without money the most basic of which is the accounting of productivity. However, if we are seriously engaged in this thought experiment we must also consider two operations of the current system that seem to be most detrimental to societal and more recently, political constructs which are the accumulation, and transferability of money. Moderate restrictions have been placed on both operations but considering the involvement of business in government countless examples evidence the lack of enthusiasm to restrict them further. (Porritt, 2012) If we consider life without money we need to substitute some values that would take the place of cash in order to reshape societal values by placing an importance on things that have greater return than the construct money can provide. In this study we developed a series of prototypes to learn how a game might be designed in order to emulate an new economic system using time and choice as important values. This study extends students understanding of the prototyping process through participation in both development and usability. The students who have a basic understanding of economics provide the feedback loop in order to establish rules, playability, and begin to understand how the game can be rigged in their favor.
Keywords
Prototyping, Game Design, Capitalism, Human Behavior
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/learnxdesign.2019.14119
Citation
Derksen, G.,and Shafieyoun, Z.(2019) Prototyping a New Economy, in Börekçi, N., Koçyıldırım, D., Korkut, F. and Jones, D. (eds.), Insider Knowledge, DRS Learn X Design Conference 2019, 9-12 July, Ankara, Turkey. https://doi.org/10.21606/learnxdesign.2019.14119
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Prototyping a New Economy
It is conceivable that capitalism and the new market economy as it currently operates is unsustainable despite the bullish opinions of businessmen and entrepreneurs. There are many obvious concerns surrounding an economy without money the most basic of which is the accounting of productivity. However, if we are seriously engaged in this thought experiment we must also consider two operations of the current system that seem to be most detrimental to societal and more recently, political constructs which are the accumulation, and transferability of money. Moderate restrictions have been placed on both operations but considering the involvement of business in government countless examples evidence the lack of enthusiasm to restrict them further. (Porritt, 2012) If we consider life without money we need to substitute some values that would take the place of cash in order to reshape societal values by placing an importance on things that have greater return than the construct money can provide. In this study we developed a series of prototypes to learn how a game might be designed in order to emulate an new economic system using time and choice as important values. This study extends students understanding of the prototyping process through participation in both development and usability. The students who have a basic understanding of economics provide the feedback loop in order to establish rules, playability, and begin to understand how the game can be rigged in their favor.